Planter's Diary

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Lifescapes

A lush plantation paradise, perfumed with the subtly intoxicating aroma of coffee and spice, welcomes you to the planter's life. Come February the air is filled with the heavy fragrance of snow white coffee blossoms, heralding the onset of the coffee season. In November, the plants are dotted with ripe red coffee cherries.

Travel through a long-gone era of tales of a land in sprawling plantation homesteads; spiced with a dash of the local lore and sprinkled with the colonial legacy of Coorg; one of the last remaining bastions of an age bygone.

It all happened in Ethiopia (Africa) where a Goatherd Kaldi was out on the greens with his flock. The goats that had been nibbling at some red berries began frisking and romping in the moonlight. He ran to the monastery pale and trembling, “The goats are bewitched!” he panted. Read more

Coorg is home to the robust, martial race of people known as Kodavas. Legend has it that during Alexander the Great’s invasion in 327 BC, many of his soldiers married natives of Coorg and settled down here. Read more

Being a South Indian, Coffee, as a subject, has always intrigued me. So when I spotted a book titled ‘Gold, Sport and Coffee Planting in Mysore’ by an English Coffee Planter of the 1800s, I had to immediately read it. Read more

The Kaveri, also called the Cauvery, is a large river traditionally originating at Talakaveri in Kodagu, Karnataka in the month of October each year, and flowing generally south and east through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Read more

Coorg produces some of the best coffee in the world. The region is dotted with several coffee plantations. No wonder, then, that it accounts for about one-third of the country’s coffee production. Read more

The Rat Snake is essentially a snake of the plains, while it has been found up to elevations of 1,800 m. The snake is diurnal in nature, but may not be commonly spotted during daytime in populated areas. Read more

The vast lands of Coorg are mainly used for agriculture. Blessed with fertile lands, crops ranging from paddy to beverages like coffee and spices such as pepper are commonly grown here. Added to this, the credit for the purest and natural form of honey produced goes to Coorg, our very own Scotland of India. Read more

With the harvest of the Arabica variety of coffee close to completion, farmers with the Robusta variety are about the middle of the season with reaping. Skilled harvest workers are much in demand and the farmer has to make much effort to ensure that the required members are available for the picking of the coffee. Read more